Tactile Perception in the Sensory Comfort of Fabric Samples

Abstract

This investigation aims to present the process of development of the attributes that will form the textile lexicon of the northeast region of Brazil for the assessment of textile tactile comfort. For this purpose, the following were adapted: ISO 11035:1994 Sensory analysis – Identification and selection of descriptors for establishing a sensory profile by a multidimensional approach; and ISO 8586:2012 Sensory analysis – General guidelines for the selection, training and monitoring of selected assessors and expert sensory assessor’s standards concerning the areas of food and cosmetics. Three panels of naive assessors from three different cities in northeastern Brazil were invited to touch 8 samples of fabrics with different textures and compositions. Initially, they generated 322 terms. Afterwards, in a second phase, they qualitatively eliminated terms with the same meaning. In the third phase, they grouped the terms through similarity analysis, which resulted in 23 terms. Then, the terms that were most cited by the assessors were analyzed and, as a result, 4 terms were eliminated. Finally, similarities were evidenced in the haptic perceptions that were perceived by the different panels, due to their cultural proximity and the fact that they come from the same region of a country with continental dimensions, as well as the transformation of human subjectivity into objective parameters provided by the textile lexicon.